books for boys

[boxofdelights]

While he was still in Montreal Mungo wrote

I've read all the books I brought with me & half of my neighbors. When I come back to Colorado can I borrow some to take with me? (What I'm really asking is if you'll make me a pile that you think I might like)
I know it's a pain because you don't know what type of books I like & i apologize, I just don't really know what things I like in a book either as silly as it sounds

I do wonder where he is finding all this time to read, but let's not talk about that. In the twelve days he's been home he read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, all of Digger, Dodger, and now he's reading Swimming To Antarctica, which was one of his dad's suggestions.

When he was a little boy, I was very good at picking out books for him; the geeky little boy in me had excellent taste. It's been a lot harder since he started high school.

My suggestions so far:

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey
Fool on the Hill, by Matt Ruff
Moo, by Jane Smiley
All Over Creation, by Ruth Ozeki
The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Foreigner, by C. J. Cherryh
whatever I've got on the shelves by Kurt Vonnegut

I keep being tempted to put Oglaf on the stack, opening it, and realizing that no that would be weird.

Comments

[malnpudl]

I'm recommending Andy Weir's The Martian a lot these days. Very-near-future realistic SF, with adventure and MacGyvering (stand back, he's going to do science!) and humor and a refreshing lack of dystopia.

[schemingreader]

My kid LOVED The Martian. Even though he's much younger, I take that as a good rec because he's picky.

[julian]

Yeah, Oglaf in, like, 10-15 years would be less weird. Oglaf now, aie.

(Connie Willis maybe?)

[boxofdelights]

Which Connie Willis to start with, do you think? To Say Nothing of the Dog?

[jesse_the_k]

We reread ...Dog in our Wiscon bookgroup and I was disappointed at how quickly it dated. The Doomsday Book, however, is set in both the future and the past, so there are few current-day details to be annoyed by. And it's heroic! with plagues! and academics!

[jesse_the_k]

Hard Times by Charles Dickens (my favorite of his)
Four Freedoms by John Crowley
1491 by Charles Mann
Woman, an Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier

criteria: challenging ideas, life lessons, good writing

[boxofdelights]

I am definitely putting Four Freedoms on the stack for the next time I see him. And 1491 on my stack. I've heard good things but haven't read it yet.

[jesse_the_k]

Oh, I look forward to the reviews.

Any time is the right time for 1491: it takes almost everything I learned in American history, tosses it into the air, and rebuilds an entirely new structure while the pieces are still falling.

[umadoshi]

I'm going to rec the Newsflesh trilogy in part because I rec it to basically everyone, but that said, at this point having recced it so widely means I know a LOT of very different people who've read it and nearly all of them have enjoyed it, so... *g*

I'm terrible at choosing recs based on gender, but if he likes snappy dialogue and snark, I'd also suggest Sarah Rees Brennan's Lynburn Legacy books. She writes very emotion-centered and clever books, though, so if he's especially into action-driven books, maybe not?

If he sends you any indication of what books he's read and liked, I can see if anything comes to mind.

[boxofdelights]

He liked The Demon's Lexicon, but that was before he started high school, when he liked pretty much everything I recommended. He rejected Cassie Clare's first novel, though.

[umadoshi]

I've never read Cassie Clare, so I can't comment on that. But I feel pretty confident saying that the Lynburn books are stronger than The Demon's Lexicon books were, so they could be worth a shot!

[krait]

I, uh, I...

Yeah, no, sorry, I read "Oglaf" and my brain jumped immediately to the extremely-NC-17-rated webcomic of that name, and I spent way too many seconds being boggled before realising it must also be a book title.

...Please tell me it's also a book title? :D

[julian]

Dead-tree collection of said webcomic. (Or anyway, I assume so. It exists, anyway.)

[boxofdelights]

It is, as Julian says, the book of the webcomic.

I was looking through my shelves, asking myself, what would this teenage boy like? And Oglaf kept yelling, "Me! Me!" And of course it's true, he would enjoy it... but NOT from his mom. No.

[silveradept]

Might be a good time to give then the trifecta of Sandman, V for Vendetta, and Transmetropolitan to keep them not only occupied but thinking.

[boxofdelights]

Good suggestions! I've never read Transmetropolitan, though.

[silveradept]

Transmetropolitan is the story of a very screwed-up future and the one journalist gonzo enough to do the unthinkable and tell the truth. It's a solid deconstruction of the shiny and clean futures of earlier science fiction and Star Trek. There's a lot of the useof the F-word and other mature concepts, like corporate corruption, but nothing a standard teenager hasn't been exposed to by their peers, really.